Activity: What are the costs of illnesses?

Objective
Make students aware of the high financial and long-term costs of routine illnesses such as diarrhea.

Time
15 minutes

Age Group
6-adult

What You Need

 * a place to write that students can read
 * optional: magazines with pictures of celebrities, athletes, movie stars, etc.

Preparation
Do the math first.

Activity
We have been talking about washing hands so you do not spread germs in poop.

Why is avoiding poop and germs important? Why is it a problem to be sick? Tell a story and do a spreadsheet on the total cost of diarrheal diseases in this school. For example: Q: How much precision can we expect for diarrhea episodes per month and cost of treatment?
 * It is disgusting to eat poop.
 * It is disgusting to serve poop to your friends and neighbors.
 * It is not nice to serve germs to your friends and neighbors.
 * You get sick if you do not avoid germs and poop.
 * Suffering or discomfort
 * Out-of-pocket medical costs
 * Lost earnings from patient and family members caring for the patient.
 * 5 illnesses a month
 * Miss 2 days of school per month
 * Parents stay home 1 day a month
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">10 months a year
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">100 students in this school
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Q: How much does did it cost you in time and money for transport, care and drugs the last time you took a child to the doctor?


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">[expected answer: 50-100 taka for doctor, 50-200 for antibiotics (OR spend hours in line for public clinic, which may lack drugs)
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">The typical family with 3 kids will have more than seven doctor visits because the kids ate or drank poop!


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Not counting the endless drug store trips
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Kids eating poop cost a typical family of three more than $10 – and that is if nobody gets real sick

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Example of using published data from Bangladesh
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Do you know someone whose child was hospitalized? What happened? [They should be able to describe a week or more lost productivity as well perhaps of tragedy.]
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">According to Demographic & Health Survey, 2007: 10.6% of kids 5 and under in Dhaka had diarrhea in the last 2 weeks (p. 136). Of those, 17.3% sought advice or treatment from a health facility or provider (other than pharmacy, shop and traditional practitioner, p. 137).

Key Words
Activity, Prevention, Diarrhea

Does disease matter?
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">There are also longer-term effects of having so much diarrhea and germs

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Ask the class: What are your goals growing up?

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Option: Have students find pictures of their ideals in magazines. They will presumably pick out athletes, movie stars, and rich people.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Boys grow strong


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">But what if they have diarrhea and cannot digest food?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Young men are handsome and attractive to girls


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">But what if they have poop on their hands?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Girls are beautiful


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">But what if they have parasites and therefore are scrawny?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Do men want to marry wives who mix poop in with their dinner?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">People grow well educated and rich


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0.14in;line-height:115%">But what if people are hungry and often ill and cannot study in school?